my cards came back damaged and inside improperly sealed or damaged cases; therefore, I do not like them or use them anymore. If people like them then good for them. The people that don’t like CGC are the PSA diehards or people who have had negative experiences (which is a decent amount).
I like CGC purely in a cosmetic sense, I collect Magikarp and Gyarados cards and prefer the way the blue CGC label compliments the blue cards. It’s that simple for me
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Yeah looks good 
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Delta species throwing a curve ball with color consistency
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Considering 90% of Magikarp and Gary cards are predominantly blue I’m content with my decision
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I know im just being silly. 
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It might be a cop-out or even hard to believe at times, but my true opinion on the matter is that I personally give very little thought into what color the slab is or how thick the plastic is. The thing that matters most to me is the card that’s encased and how representative the condition is based on the grade provided. I own slabs from 5 separate grading companies and love them all dearly. There are things I love and hate about all of them.
I love the convenience and market history available with PSA, but I have a distaste for the fogged edges in the slab and abysmal font they use on the label. I feel you can “get lucky” sending in worse conditioned cards with PSA than any other company in my experience.
I love the eye appeal of the clear plastic and harsher grading standards of CGC near their introduction to the grading scene, but I also hate the font and immediate change of label color given how new of a company they were in the trading card realm.
I love the sturdiness and protection of BGS slabs and think the gold label 9.5/10’s are some of the most eye catching in the industry, but consistency in grades lower than a 9.5/9 seem to vary wildly and their labels below the BGS 9 grade are incredibly ugly. Not to mention their pop report is virtually useless and they do no image scanning.
I think each company has a fatal flaw; PSA with consistency, CGC with grading standards having lowered and almost cringe-worthy community engagements, and BGS with their website and customer service.
All in all, I just check the card meticulously when buying from any company, but it really doesn’t matter much to me unless I’m going for a specific set in a registry like my PSA 10 Torchics. CGC has taken a hard fall in my eyes lately, and I probably won’t grade with them very much going forward, but I still value my CGC slabs as much as any of my others because I myself have hand picked them.
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Not sure if you agree with this, but for me the issue with the CGC grading scale change is not the fact that it happened – it’s the fact that they haven’t been open about it. As someone including CGC 9.5s as part of my sets, I’m actually happy that they changed the grading scale because it’s made my goals actually attainable – despite the fact that I own a lot of old cert 9.5s that have been devalued by the change.
The issue, as I see it, is that CGC has been stubbornly unwilling to acknowledge any change happened. And that definitely has hurt my perception of them to a degree (but not so much that I don’t still use them). If it amounted to a “fatal flaw,” not a single third-party grading company would meet that or any similar standard (which is basically what you alluded to in your post).
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My use of language is entirely my opinion, and should only be taken as such. I’m not in any position to claim any company lost a chunk of customer base based on my own experience or opinions, and I think you know I’m not claiming that lmao
Whether or not they acknowledge the change doesn’t really make much difference to me personally as they already leave a poor taste in my mouth when it comes to interacting with the public, but I completely get what you’re saying. They ignored or gave politician answers to the community for months when it came to their Population Report, and I have a myriad of examples to pull from on their social media on why I don’t really respect their CS team when it comes to community engagement. I think your points are valid, I personally did like the tougher grading standards they used near the beginning because it made the 9.5 & 10 returns that much more exciting to receive. But, I do agree that more attainable goals are ideal and understand their choice to be a little more lax when it comes to that Gem Mint through Perfect 10 area.
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Great point. I was thinking about this just the other day. It kind of says a lot when a company just shoves something under the rug. Worse that its also very obvious as well. Not something negligible.
And yes my first sub with cgc was terrible. Not a single 10 even with the modern. This was last year before the scale changed. I just decided to try again with a new submission and ill be happy to see a few tens. The cards ive sent in look perfect
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I absolutely love how bgs sleeves the card. I hate how psa and cgc has the card naked sliding around lol
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This belongs in the unpopular opinions thread!
Most people seem to dislike the sleeve in the slab.
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Does it really matter if cgc admits they did/didn’t change the grading scale?
In terms of transparency, yes. I would prefer that they be open about it and tell people exactly how it changed rather than leaving everyone in the dark. For instance, they could come out and say something like: “to better match the expectations of the market, we have shifted our grading scale upwards by 0.25. On average, cards will now score 0.25 points higher than they would’ve on the old scale.”
Right now, people seem to fall into one of two camps:
- People who aren’t aware that CGC changed their scale
- People who think the change is significantly more impactful than it actually is. Some seem to think it was a hyper-dramatic shift – on the order of +0.5 or +1. Instead, the reality is that the shift is significantly under +0.5 – in my estimation, somewhere between +0.15 and +0.3.
It would benefit both CGC and consumers, IMO, if they actually quantified how the scale has changed. The clear, unambiguous reality is that the scale did change. Refusing to acknowledge it hurts their credibility.
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I know this is true but it will never not blow my mind. I would do anything for a sleeve on my PSA cards. I’d pay a premium for that one cent sleeve.
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i think buying CGC slabs for crossover purpose to PSA isn’t so bad imo, lot of CGC slabs are out of the radar. but for flipping purpose i think i’d keep PSA slabs instead
Not to beat a dead horse, but we have mentioned that the scale did change pretty dramatically for modern and ultra modern collectors. Vintage was a less dramatic shift because most of those cards were not 10 contenders anyway.
In fairness, the card appears to have crashed in value in all grades. It appears to have been selling for ~$50 in PSA 10 at one point and the most recent PWCC sale I’m seeing is for $17 lol.
